Bill Ward's departure

Ward was increasingly suffering from substance abuse issues.^[5][8] "Alcohol had become more important than Black Sabbath, our audience, my family, everything, and that included me," he reflected later. "Also, I was absolutely missing [Osbourne]; really missing him and I wasn't coping with my grief that well because I was so drunk. My mother had died and I wasn't coping with the grief for my mother and I was feeling overwhelmed with loss. Lastly, as much as I loved Ronnie James Dio, it [the new band lineup] didn't work for me."^[13]

Ward performed his last show with Sabbath at Met Center on 19 August 1980 – and, like Osbourne, would not perform with Sabbath again until 13 July 1985 at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia for Live Aid. The following night, Sabbath were forced to cancel their sold-out show at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver when Ward either arrived late or failed to go on. Blue Öyster Cult did perform and received the sizeable proceeds of the show, while Sabbath were not paid for this show or for subsequent shows that they cancelled due to Ward's unavailability.^[5]

"I escalated into such oblivion that I just was incapable of confronting my losses and dealing with them in a healthy way…" Ward explained. "I blamed everybody and everything for my problems and I just fell apart… That's why I left the Heaven & Hell tour."^[14]

Turned down by Cozy Powell, Sabbath replaced Ward with Vinny Appice.^[4][5] Appice played his first show with Sabbath on 31 August 1980 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu for The Summer Blowout.^[1][4][8]

"We didn't want Bill to leave…" said Iommi during the Mob Rules Tour. "He had a lot going on within himself that we didn't know about, and Bill needed time to actually sit back and think." Of Appice, the guitarist said: "He had two days to learn the show before we done an open-air show in Hawaii, and he's done really well – very, very quick."^[15]

Milwaukee riot

On 9 October 1980, Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult co-headlined a show at the MECCA Arena in Milwaukee, where Sabbath was scheduled to play last. As Butler was about to play his bass solo intro to "N.I.B.", someone in the audience threw a projectile (either a bottle or a large metal cross, depending on the source) and hit Butler in the head, knocking him out cold.^[4][7][16] The show was stopped and Butler was taken to the hospital, where he received stitches and was later released.^[16] Dio came back onstage, told the audience what had happened, and told off whoever threw the projectile. Sabbath's road manager then announced that the show was cancelled and berated the audience, which angered them.^[7] When the audience of approximately 7,000^[17] to 9,000^[16] saw the crew beginning to remove the band's equipment from the stage, they began destroying windows, doors and furniture inside the venue, doing $10,000 worth of damage.^{[5][7][16][17]} After the venue was cleared by police, fighting continued outside the venue and up to two blocks away, and it took police over an hour to clear the area. According to an October 1980 article in Billboard magazine, "Every available officer in the city was called out" and "two policemen and dozens of concertgoers were injured."^[16] Butler has recalled injured fans being brought into the hospital alongside him while he was being treated.^[5] A 2014 retrospective article in the Milwaukee Record said that three police officers were injured and roughly 100 arrests were made.^[17] Following the riot, MECCA's management enacted restrictions designed to prevent attendees from bringing alcohol into the venue, and placed an indefinite ban on "hard rock concerts" there, with MECCA's president stating that the venue would now only consider booking "middle-of-the-road performers" such as Billy Joel and Barry Manilow.^[16] Blue Öyster Cult bassist Joe Bouchard said that the band was "banned from Milwaukee for years" after the incident, despite having nothing to do with the riot.^[5]

Black and Blue concert video

On 17 October 1980, Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult performed at Nassau Coliseum in Hempstead, New York. The performances from that show were filmed and, after the tour, released as the concert film Black and Blue. The film was shown on the midnight movie circuit in the United States. In the 1980s, the film was also released on VHS and laserdisc for the home video market.^[3][18] The film has never been officially released on DVD and DVDs on the market are generally bootlegs. Official DVD releases were announced and cancelled two separate times in 2002 by Castle Pictures and in 2004 by Universal Video, although some shops in Europe did sell a few copies of the 2004 DVD.^[18] Members of Blue Öyster Cult, as well as Castle Pictures, have indicated that a DVD was not released because Tony Iommi objected to the film's distribution.^[3][5][18]